Full Circle: The Years Passed Like Scenes of a Show — The Professor Said to Write What You Know

I visited my alma mater today, baby in tow. Since I was in the area meeting a friend, I decided it was finally time to part with some of my old textbooks during the college’s book buyback week. I’ve been trying to be more intentional about what I hold onto—shedding what no longer serves me to make space for what does.

It felt strange being back in a place so heavy with visceral memories. Vivid vignettes of meaningful conversations with classmates and professors in the very concourse where I now held my daughter flashed before me. Even the parking garage held resonance. As it turns out, imprints of a different chapter of my life are not so easily dulled. I attended college here on and off since 2011, graduating from my diploma program in 2013. But it was the second round of full-time studies that almost broke me. The last stretch of my undergrad was brutal. In my final semester, anxiety pressed down so hard it made me nauseous just stepping onto campus. I’d slip into windowless rooms to study, avoiding the bright chatter of the halls and the sidelong smiles from flirty 20-year-old boys who had no idea I was just trying to hold myself together as I was mentally breaking. More than once, I ended up dry heaving in the campus bathroom before class, face hot with tears, wondering how I’d make it through another day. I finally graduated in the spring of 2023 and never looked back, until today.

As I walked those familiar halls with my daughter on my hip, I realized something I hadn’t before: every sleepless night, every panicked exam, every haphazardly written paper, every moment I thought I wouldn’t make it through… all of it led to her—this brilliant beacon of light and goodness who connects me to my purpose. Somehow, being there again with her turned a place that once felt heavy into one that felt whole.

And when I left, I noticed it. I was lighter walking out than I’d been walking in.

Returning to such a formative environment with my daughter enabled me to truly see how one of the most difficult and intense times of my life connected to this moment—like pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

I couldn’t see it back then, but every bit of it was for her.

And for me, too.

For our becoming.